He pounded both fists on the smooth wooden surface of his large desk. Stone should have never left that park alive. Now he was a loose cannon. Angry and probably confused. Not knowing who to trust.
“Yes?”
“Hello,” Higgins heard Vanderhoff’s cold voice on the other end. “This is—”
“I know who you are. How did this happen? I thought you had it under control.”
“Missions are not always successful, Mr. Higgins. A man in your position should know that.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Vanderhoff? Do you realize the implications? Now Stone probably thinks there’s a leak at the CIA, and if he remembers anything about standard procedure, he’ll have realized by now that the only person Potter could have made contact with was me, Chief Europe—unless he also thinks someone was tailing Potter. We have to find him.”
“Chardon thinks he drowned.”
“Did you find the body?”
“No, but…”
“Then we assume he’s still alive.” Higgins closed his eyes and rubbed a finger against his left temple.
“I know.”
“I have no other choice but to frame him for Potter’s death, to mark him for termination. I’ll need Chardon’s help in gathering the proof I need to convince my superior.”
“All right. I’ll make sure the French handle their side before midnight tonight.”
“Good. The game has changed and we must adjust. Call me back if there are any problems. Otherwise I’ll assume Chardon will handle his end. One more thing, any sign of the woman?”
“No, but we have people looking for her.”
“All right. Good-bye.” Higgins hung up the phone and rubbed his chin with the side of his index finger. He then made a fist and lightly pressed the knuckles against his lips. The situation was getting out of control. He had to act decisively. If Stone was alive, he could expose them.
Higgins’s hand reached for the next memo on the pile of paper in his in-box. He made it a personal goal to go through his in-box daily, and never let the paperwork accumulate. In his line of work he couldn’t afford to fall behind.
Higgins read the short cover letter. It was from George Pruett, his boss’s nephew working at Computer Services, routed to him from the European desk. Higgins groaned. Did he have to personally review every piece of paper the analysts couldn’t easily plug into one of their little cubbyholes?
The one-paragraph memo told Higgins that George had written an algorithm that searched for isolated incidents and attempted to look for patterns. He flipped to the second page and froze. What? How in the hell did he put these events together so fast? He read the list once more in disbelief.
Great! Just fucking great! On one side he had Vanderhoff, a scientist-turned-investor trying to play the intelligence game. And on the other side a little genius who writes software that picks up all the relevant killings out of the hundreds of killings every day around the world.
Higgins drove a fist into his palm, then rose from his chair and paced back and forth. He needed to calm down and be objective. Solve one problem at a time. First was the problem with Stone. He thought he had an answer to that one. A simple straightforward answer. He just needed to convince his boss to give the order for termination. Only Pruett could label an operative “beyond salvage.”
That much should go fairly smoothly, he decided. Once labeled, Stone would be as good as dead. The standing orders would be to exercise extreme prejudice. Shoot to kill. Period.
What had Higgins concerned was the second issue. His boss’s nephew. How could he stop George Pruett’s algorithm from stirring up more trouble? From adding more pieces to the puzzle?
Suddenly, and idea came. Higgins reached for the phone and dialed a local unlisted number.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
Everything in space obeys the laws of physics. If you know these laws, and obey them, space will treat you kindly.
—Wernher von Braun
LAUNCH COMPLEX 39, PAD A. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA
“T minus four minutes and counting. Preparations for main engine ignition. The main fuel valve heaters have been turned on. T minus three minutes, fifty-seven seconds; final fuel purge on Lightning’s main engines has been started.”
The NASA public affairs commentator was broadcasting over numerous loudspeakers and through the orbiter’s communications system.
Kessler closed his eyes and desperately fought against the excitement that slowly consumed him.
“Heart rate is up to one hundred twenty beats a minute. Relax, Michael,” Kessler heard Neal Hunter’s reassuring words through his helmet’s built-in headset. Hunter was Mission Control’s capsule communicator, or CapCom, for STS-72, the number of their mission.
“Trying…I’m trying.” Kessler inhaled deeply and looked over to his right. Jones sat rock still, apparently frightened. That helped Kessler relax. He had never seen Jones scared before.
“Say, CJ,” Kessler commented. “I thought you boys from Texas weren’t scared of anything.”
“Eighty-two beats a minute, Jones. You’re doing just fine.”
Kessler frowned. The bastard was indeed ice cold.
“Just think of something pleasant,” Jones said to Kessler. “Happy thoughts.”
Kessler gave him the bird.
“T minus three minutes, thirty-five seconds.”
Kessler watched Lightning’s General Purpose Computer responding to commands from the Launch Processing System—the KSC’s ground computer network at the launch site—by moving the elevons, speed brake, and rudder to ensure that they would be ready for use in flight. The control stick barely moved in all directions. LPS had taken control of the launch sequence at T minus twenty minutes, and it would remain in direct control of the GPCs until thirty-one seconds before launch.
“T minus three minutes, twenty seconds. Lightning is now on internal power, however, fuel cells will continue to receive fuel from the ground-support system for one additional minute.”
He looked through the heat-resistant glass panels. Nothing but blue skies; another beautiful day in central Florida.
Kessler decided that the wait prior to the launch had to be the worst part of the flight.
“T minus two minutes mark. It’s gonna be smooth sailing, baby.”
Easy for you to say, Kessler thought. The NASA announcer was not the one sitting over several million pounds of volatile chemicals. Kessler decided to follow Jones’s advice, and closed his eyes and thought about the sea, about the clippers, about the courageous Captain Forbes and Lightning. For a moment he felt ashamed. Ashamed of being scared. He had to force his mind not to be afraid of something for which he knew he was more than adequately trained. He was ready, he was prepared. But what if something goes wrong and…damnit, Michael! Stop it! If something goes wrong you will have to deal with it. You are in charge here. You make the calls. Just like Columbus on the Santa Maria or Henry Hudson on Discovery. You are the captain of your vessel. Start acting like one!
He inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. The sky was so blue. So peaceful. He admired it through the 1.3-inch-thick transparent center pane. Although the sun was in his field of view, it didn’t bother him. The outer surface of the pane was coated with an infrared reflector that transmitted only the visible spectrum. Kessler closed his eyes once more and relaxed.
“Heartbeat’s down to one hundred three, Michael.”
Kessler’s lips curved upward. He was in control. He was the mission commander.
“T minus one minute mark and counting. Sound-suppression water system is being armed…it has been armed. T minus forty-five seconds.”
Kessler could not help himself. He felt his heartbeat increasing once more. But this time he was not afraid; he was still in control of his own thoughts and movements. His senses
sharpened to an all-time high.
“T minus thirty-five seconds.”
The Launch Processing System switched off. Its last command enabled the automatic launch-sequence software of Lightning’s five General Purpose Computers.
“Switching to redundant sequence start. T minus twenty seconds, T minus ten…nine…eight…seven…six…we’ve gone for main engine start…we have main engine start!”
The rumble. The powerful, mind-numbing rumble of Lightning’s three main engines pounded through the orbiter as they unleashed a combined 1.2 million pounds of thrust against the jet-blast deflectors of the launchpad. The turbine blades of the SSME’s turbopumps accelerated to 37,000 RPM, pressurizing the volatile chemicals to three thousand pounds per square inch. Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen savagely clashed in the nozzle section and exploded in a ferocious outburst of highly pressurized steam. At the same moment, the sound-suppression water system poured water onto the bottom section of the launchpad at a peak rate of 900,000 gallons per minute, protecting the orbiter and its payload from the damaging violence of the acoustical energy reflected off the Mobile Launcher Platform.
The SSME boost was titanic, but not strong enough to launch Lightning into its maiden flight. It needed additional power, additional force. It came a millisecond after the General Purpose Computers verified that all three engines had reached the required ninety-percent thrust level after three seconds of operation. Kessler felt the vibrations reach his soul the moment the two Solid Rocket Boosters kicked into life with a brutal roar, shaking not only Lightning, but the ground itself for several miles around. Kessler clenched his teeth as the pounding shock waves of six and a half million pound of thrust thundered across Cape Canaveral in a howling, ear-piercing crescendo. Suddenly the blue skies disappeared. Lightning had been engulfed by the wake of its own engines.
The GPCs verified that both Solid Rocket Boosters had ignited properly before initiating the eight twenty-eight-inch-long explosive bolts anchoring the shuttle to the platform. The GPC started the on-board master timing unit and mission-event timers. Lightning’s main engines throttled up to one hundred percent.
“Lift-off! We have achieved lift-off of America’s Lightning!”
Kessler noticed upward movement, felt a light pressure pushing him down against his seat. Out of my hands, he thought. No human could ever provide the precise thruster controls to achieve a smooth lift-off. The thousands of microscopic adjustments issued by Lightning’s powerful computers every second kept the orbiter on track.
“The shuttle has cleared the tower!”
In the cockpit, Kessler and Jones monitored equipment and instruments as Lightning rose higher and higher into the blue sky. A billowing trail of exhaust marked its path.
“Twenty seconds, all systems go,” commented Kessler in a controlled monotone. He noticed something happening to him. The fear was gone. “Roll maneuver starting.” The shuttle began to roll clockwise 180 degrees. “Twenty-five seconds. Roll maneuver completed.”
NASA’s ground-tracking stations received Kessler’s S-band radio transmission before relaying it to Houston. During the liftoff and ascent phase, Lightning’s S-band system transmitted and received both communications and systems-status information through Merrit Island, Ponce de Leon, and Bermuda ground-tracking stations.
“Zero-point-six Mach and rising,” Jones remarked. “The ride is very smooth, Houston.”
“Forty-five seconds. Approaching Mach one. Throttling engines down for Max Q,” Kessler reported as the computers reduced thrust for a moment to relieve the tremendous strain on the structure as Lightning approached the speed of sound. The entire cabin glowed from the light of the engines far below.
Suddenly ice, accumulated over the upper section of the external fuel tank, began to break off as the orbiter cruised through Mach one. Pieces exploded against the flight deck’s forward windows, but the sound of their impact was lost in the low, hard roar of Lightning’s engines ninety feet behind.
“Mark one minute, Houston,” Jones reported. “Five nautical miles in altitude, twenty-three nautical miles downrange, velocity twenty-three hundred feet per second.”
“Roger, Lightning. You’ve passed through Max Q. Looking good to throttle engines back to one hundred percent.”
“Roger, throttling up,” responded Kessler.
“One minute and forty-five seconds, Lightning.”
“Roger,” acknowledged Kessler.
“Looking good, Lightning. Mark one minute, fifty-five seconds. Twenty-one miles high, five thousand feet per second. Initiate Solid Rocket Booster separation.”
“Roger, Houston. Starting SRB sep.”
Kessler watched the pyrotechnic display as both SRBs simultaneously separated from the sides of the external tank.
“Confirm separation, Lightning.”
“Smooth as glass, Houston, smooth as glass.”
“Good, Lightning. Two minutes, fifteen seconds. Press for MECO.”
“Roger, Houston. Press for MECO,” acknowledged Kessler as Lightning’s on-board guidance system converged, steering Lightning for its precise window in space for Main Engine Cut-Off. Lightning was now thirty-five nautical miles high.
“Okay, Houston, the engines are coming down and looking good,” reported Jones as he monitored the main engines’ status on the control panel to his left.
Lightning rose higher and higher as its speed blasted past six thousand feet per second. The communications link between the orbiter and Houston switched from NASA’s ground-tracking stations to one of three satellites from the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth. Lightning’s data, acquired by the five-thousand-pound satellite, was transmitted to the EDRSS ground station at White Sands, New Mexico, where it was relayed to Johnson Space Center.
“Lightning, Houston. You’re looking good at three minutes.”
“Roger, copy looking good at three.”
The sky began to darken. The colorful blue of just a minute earlier had turned into one of a less vivid hue, as the orbiter scurried through the Earth’s stratosphere at nearly ten times the speed of sound. Kessler had only been exposed to a maximum of three Gs during Max Q. Quite a contrast from his days as a naval aviator when pulling seven or eight Gs in a twisting, turning F-14D Tomcat was an everyday occurrence.
“Mark three minutes, fifty-five seconds, Lightning. Mark negative return. Repeat, negative return. You’re a go for space!”
“Roger, Houston.” Kessler eyed the instruments. Fifty-eight miles high at eight thousand feet per second. He looked over at Jones, who smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. He stared at Jones for one more second before he felt a strange vibration. Something he had never felt before. Lightning began to tremble.
“Houston, Lightning here. I think we’ve got a—”
His words were cut short by a powerful blast. It shook the entire vessel. Images of Challenger’s explosion flickered in front of his eyes as what was once a clear view of the cosmos was suddenly engulfed in a ball of flames. Kessler felt momentarily disoriented. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong.
“SSME failure! SSME failure!” screamed Jones.
“Shut it down, Lightning! Shut down number-one SSME now, NOW!”
Kessler reached with his right hand for one of three covered switches located in the middle of the wide center console. He lifted the cover and shut off number-one Space Shuttle Main Engine as they left the wrathful flames behind and free space was in plain view once more. “Number-one SSME off.”
“Lightning, you are to press to ATO! Repeat, press to ATO!”
Kessler frowned. There were four abort modes for the space shuttle. The first was to simply return to the launch site, but at this altitude and speed, that option was no longer available. The second abort mode was called TAL, for Transoceanic Abort Landing to a landing strip at e
ither Zaragoza or Moron Air Bases in Spain, but a powerful storm had all but closed those bases. The third abort mode was called AOA, or Abort Once Around, meaning the shuttle was unable to reach a stable enough orbit but had enough speed to circle the Earth once and then land. The fourth, and preferred option was to Abort to Orbit, or ATO, and it was used when the shuttle could not achieve its desired orbit but could reach a lower stable orbit. Given Lightning’s current speed and altitude, and the fact that two of its SSME engines continued to provide plenty of thrust, NASA was opting for ATO, which was actually the preferred of the abort options.
“Roger, press to ATO,” he finally responded.
Kessler rotated the abort mode switch to the ATO position and depressed the abort push button, initiating the computerized programs that would manage the abort. He then throttled up the two remaining main engines to 109 percent. He felt the light kick and nodded approvingly.
“Houston, Lightning,” Kessler said. “Sixty miles altitude, five hundred miles downrange, velocity twenty thousand feet per second. What the hell happened?”
“Can’t tell for sure, Lightning. Computers are running diagnostics on number-one SSME.”
“Press to MECO in one minute, thirty seconds. Systems remain nominal,” he reported, referring to Main Engine Cut Off, the moment he would shut off the two remaining engines, which he was keeping burning for a little longer to reach a reasonable orbit.
“Roger, we copy, Lightning.”
Everything appeared normal once more, but Kessler knew that could be deceiving. The explosion could have loosened some of the heat-resistant tiles that protected the orbiter from the extreme temperatures during re-entry. He was not that concerned about losing tiles on the upper fuselage, but it would be critical if tiles underneath were missing, where temperatures would reach over two thousand degrees during Earth re-entry.
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